Survey and Speculation

Fetishising the Brusselsroadscape

Claire PelgrimsUniversit�e libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Abstract

This explorative paper is an attempt to improve understanding of the material infrastructure

and subjective affective investments into it. Building on the concept of “fetish”, it proposes a

theoretical framework to analyse the entanglement of the functional, sensitive and social

symbolic dimensions of Brussels’ “modern roads” to reinforce and stabilise a social imaginary

of fast mobility. Examining technical reports, political discourses, press articles and cultural

productions such as movies, TV broadcasts and photographs relating to the infrastructuring

process, the paper reveals – beyond the case study – the aesthetic dimension of the mod-

ernisation of roads, which relates to symbolic investments in cars. The theoretical frame-

work involves heuristic values when regarded beyond this specific Belgian context. It opens

new possibilities for broader interpretations of the mobility infrastructure.

Keywords

Automobility infrastructure, imaginary, twentieth century, fetish

Introduction

French theorists from the 1950s onwards have highlighted the multipledimensions of the car beyond its practical use.1 Since the late 1990s, a broad

Corresponding author:

Claire Pelgrims, Facult�e d’Architecture La Cambre Horta, Laboratoire Urbanisme, Infrastructure, Ecologies,

Universit�e libre de Bruxelles, Aspirante F.R.S. FNRS, Bruxelles, Belgium.

Email: claire.pelgrims@ulb.ac.be

The Journal of Transport History

2020, Vol. 41(1) 89–115

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DOI: 10.1177/0022526619892832

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1 David Inglis, “Auto Couture”, Theory, Culture & Society 21:4–5 (2004), 197–219.

range of mobility scholars has tried to unfold these social symbolic, material andaffective “frames”2 – or “social imaginaries”3 – of cars. “Emotional investments inthe car go beyond any economic calculation of costs and benefits, and outweighany reasoned arguments about the public good or the future of the planet”.4 Theyarise from the kinaesthetic feelings about cars mediated through what Sheller calls“emotional geographies”, that is to say, the cultural emotions framing cars accord-ing to expectations, patterns and anticipations. Through their speed, security,safety, link to sexuality and career achievement, and freedom facilitation, carsprovide status and emotional affect.5 Mobility research has revealed cars asmeans of identification in terms of class and gender,6 nationality7 and individual-ity,8 as sexual partners,9 as items of consumption,10 possible abodes ofprivacy, solitude and ritual,11 ceremonial initiations into adulthood, instrumentsof aggression and skill and potential hobbies.12 These symbolic investments in carscoincide with a renewed conception of automobility infrastructures. These phe-nomena have rarely been analysed together, and the aesthetic dimension of theroad project is often disregarded by works primarily concerned with its functionaldimension.

Other scholars have nevertheless held a long-standing interest in physical infra-structures and transport networks. They have acknowledged social meanings, cul-tural dimensions and affordances of such supposedly “non-places”.13 First centredon “seemingly static mobility infrastructures”, scholars have now shifted their

2 A technological frame refers to a shared cognitive worldview that binds different stakeholderstogether. Master frames are slow changing “structured stories” such one that link mobility to politicalfreedom. Benjamin K. Sovacool and John Axsen, “Functional, Symbolic and Societal Frames forAutomobility”, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 118 (2018), 730–46; MimiSheller, “The Emergence of New Cultures of Mobility”, in Frank W. Geels et al. (eds), Automobilityin Transition? A Socio-Technical Analysis of Sustainable Transport (New York NY: Routledge, 2012),180–202.3 Social imaginaries are institutions that give meanings to environments and actions. These affectiveand significant visions of the world organise and give meanings to sensory perceptions and discursiveurban knowledge. They’re subject to a double process. The aesthetic experience of the city updatesimaginaries. At the same time, imaginaries embody the city materiality, continuously restructuring thecity through a plurality of embodiments. Cornelius Castoriadis, L’institution Imaginaire de la Soci�et�e(Paris: Seuil, 1975).4 Mimi Sheller, “Automotive Emotions”, Theory, Culture & Society 21:4–5 (2004), 221–42, here 236.5 Sheller, “Automotive Emotions”.6 Linda Steg, “Car Use”, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 39:2 (2005), 147–62.7 Tim Edensor, “Automobility and National Identity”, Theory, Culture & Society 21:4–5 (2004), 101–20.8 David Gartman, “Three Ages of the Automobile”, Theory, Culture & Society 21:4–5 (2004), 169–95.9 Sheller, “Automotive Emotions”, 235.10 Henri Lefebvre, Le Droit a la Ville (Paris: Economica, 2009 [1968]); Henri Lefebvre, La Productionde l’Espace (Paris: Anthropos, 1974); Guy Debord, “Situationiste Theses on Traffic”, in Ken Knabb (ed.and tran.), Situationist International Anthology (Berkeley CA: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006).11 Roland Barthes, “La Voiture: Projection de l’Ego”, in Eric Marty (ed.), Oeuvres Compl�etes (1942–1965) (Paris: Seuil, 2002), T.2 (1962–1967).12 Sovacool and Axsen, “Functional, Symbolic and Societal Frames for Automobility”; Jennifer Kent,“Driving to Save Time or Saving Time to Drive?”, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice65 (2014), 103–15.13 Marc Aug�e, Non-lieux (Paris: Seuil, 1992).

90 The Journal of Transport History 41(1)

attention to the mobile, affective and atmospheric dimensions of infrastructure.They have given insight into the “relational processes of ‘infrastructuring’ bywhich infrastructured spaces, subjects and practices emerge”.14 Regarding auto-mobility infrastructure, these researches have taken “automotive emotions” seri-ously.15 To inform a socio-technical transition towards more sustainable and“ethical” forms of mobility, they have engaged with the sensitive and social dimen-sions of automobility. They have aimed at understanding the stubborn persistenceof car-based cultures beyond the more functional technical and socio-economicfactors that ground “neoclassical” transportation policy and current transitionstrategies in Belgium,16 as elsewhere.17

Important work has recently been done to “understand the affective resonances,atmospheres, vibrations and enchanting qualities of mobility infrastructures andpractices” (Figure 1).18 In line with works on the ambiances19 of continuouslyevolving infrastructure – socially, phenomenologically and materially – thispaper is an attempt to improve understanding of the material infrastructure andsubjective affective investments into it, building on the concept of “fetish”. I epis-temologically and methodologically define it as a system of instantiations that,moving from “utopia” to “ideology”,20 materialises and stabilises a social imagi-nary. The latter embodies the field (infrastructure), the sensitive dimensions (prac-tices, emotions and living together) and the image (picture, narrative, discourse).The new concept helps to illuminate the representative and aesthetic dimensions ofthe world experienced in intensity. It allows analysis of images (through culturalproduction as films and photos) on the one hand, and of desires and aesthetic,affective and passionate investments on the other. My explorative approach differsfrom both functionalist and technical analysis of the road network in transportand urban history,21 and from public policies or systemic analyses of the Belgianinfrastructure. This includes Ryckewaert’s analyses of how the political and eco-nomic interests tie up with spatial and urban planning considerations to guideBelgium’s infrastructural development;22 or Tellier’s enquiry on the agency of

14 Peter Merriman, “Mobility Infrastructures”, Mobilities 11:1 (2016), 83–98; see also Penny Harveyand Hannah Knox, “The Enchantments of Infrastructure”, Mobilities 7:4 (2012), 521–36.15 Sheller, “Automotive Emotions”, 223.16 Wojciech KeRbłowski and David Bassens, “All Transport Problems Are Essentially Mathematical”,Urban Geography 39:3 (2017), 1–25.17 Sovacool and Axsen, “Functional, Symbolic and Societal Frames for Automobility”; ElizabethShove, “Beyond the ABC”, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 42:6 (2010), 1273–85.18 Merriman, “Mobility Infrastructures”, 86.19 Jean-Paul Thibaud, “The Backstage of Urban Ambiances”, Emotion, Space and Society 15 (2015),39–46.20 Paul Ricœur, Temps et R�ecit. Le Temps Racont�e (Paris: Seuil, 1991).21 In transport history: “Bestuur der Wegen”, Annales Des Travaux Publics de Belgique (1987), 65–112;Minist�ere des Travaux Publics, Belgian Roads. From Antiquity to 1980 (Bruxelles: Minist�ere des TravauxPublics, 1987). In urban history: Serge Jaumain and Chlo�e Deligne (eds), L’Expo 58 (Bruxelles: Cri,2009); Thierry Demey, Chronique d’une Capitale en Chantier (Bruxelles: Paul Legrain & C.F.C., 1992),II “DE L’EXPO 58 AU SIEGE DE LA C.E.E.”.22 Michael Ryckewaert, Building the Economic Backbone of the Belgian Welfare State (Rotterdam:NAI, 2011).

Pelgrims 91

technical administrations developing underground infrastructure to

materialise their agenda.23 My approach ties up with the evolution of traditionally

objectifying disciplines, such as geography, that have now undergone a

“sensitive” turn.As for the car itself, automobility infrastructure seems to fulfil many symbolic

and affective functions. Three dimensions of automobility infrastructure may be

distinguished. The functional dimension may be defined as road convenience in

terms of accessibility, speed and safety. The sensitive dimension refers to the affor-

dances of automobility infrastructure as a sensitive environment, objects of

Figure 1. Cas Oorthuys, 1958. Source: ! Nederlandse fotomuseum, Rotterdam.

23 C�eline Tellier, “Corps Technique et Techniques du Corps, Sociologie des Ing�enieurs du SouterrainBruxellois (1950–2010)”, PhD dissertation, ULB (Belgium), 2012.

92 The Journal of Transport History 41(1)

seduction and support of aestheticised experiences that bring pleasure and fearand impact the construction of pre-reflexive identity. The social dimension relatesto values of freedom, democracy, progress and emancipation supported by auto-mobility infrastructure development in representations, narratives anddiscourses. The three dimensions imply different forms of dependence on the auto-mobility infrastructure. They structure different (emerging, dominant or residual)practices relating to different affects, attachments and communities around differ-ent values embodied in different facets of the infrastructure (Table 1). Theythus hold important implications for the full understanding of the presentdominant automobility. Nonetheless, the entanglement of those three dimensionsin the mobility infrastructure to materialise and stabilise mobility imaginarieshas not been developed. Dependence on automobility infrastructure, as much ascars, comes out of a complex social construction spreading across the twentiethcentury.

A theoretical framework may help us to examine the relationships between thefunctional, sensitive and social dimensions of automobility infrastructure. Thedefinition of “fetish” developed by Pietz may help to build such a framework.We know from Marxist theory that technological networks can become“fetishised” like other elements of the urban environment.24 The concept of

Table 1. Sources of dependence for the automobility infrastructure.

Dependence

Functional Sensitive Social

Attachments to Offered possibilities Object/experience

(pleasure of driving,

visual, haptic, etc.)

Embodied values;

procured social

capital for individuals;

mythical character

of roads

Communities Drivers, traffic

engineers

Collectors, sportspersons,

hedonists, artists

National, aesthetic

communities of drivers

Values Mobility, accessibility,

rationality

Heritage, art, aesthetic Freedom, emancipation,

individualisation,

progress; “modern life”

Objects Networked

infrastructure

Aestheticised and

desirable engineered

structures, collection,

pictures

Instantiations of society,

achievements, landmarks

Practices Daily mobility,

commuting from

home to work

Leisure travel, speeding,

cruising

Social distinction,

expression of identity,

myth construction

24 Maria Kaika and Erik Swyngedouw, “Fetishizing the Modern City: The Phantasmagoria of UrbanTechnological Networks”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 24:1 (2000), 120–38.

Pelgrims 93

fetish involves a clear comparative and critical dimension. It assumes an impossi-ble, a-symbolic, multicultural perspective. However, Pietz develops the concept farbeyond the theory of commodification. His definition is appropriate to diverseobjects: modern art, sexual fetishes, and fetishes of primitive religion, technologyand commodities and so on.25 From the word’s conceptual history via the inter-cultural context of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on the West Africancoast until today,26 Pietz has brought four recurring themes to light:

“the dependence of the fetish for its meaning and value on a particular order of social

relations, which it in turn reinforces”, and “the radical historicality of the fetish’s

origin: arising in a singular event fixing together otherwise heterogenous elements, the

identity and power of the fetish consists in its enduring capacity to repeat this singular

process of fixation, along with the resultant effect”;

“the untranscended materiality of the fetish: ‘matter’, or the material object, is viewed

as the locus of religious activity or psychic investment”, and “the active relation of the

fetish object to the living body of an individual: a kind of external controlling organ

directed by powers outside the affected person’s will, the fetish represents a subversion

of the ideal of the autonomously determined self”.27

These four points may be considered as different types of relations between thefunctional, the sensitive and the social dimensions of mobility infrastructure. Theyexplain how those dimensions are entangled to materialise and stabilise the dom-inant imaginary of fast mobility in a system articulating dispositifs and internaliseddispositions towards acceleration (Figure 2).

In the “Theoretical framework” section of this paper, I outline how the conceptof fetish allows a transversal approach, interrelating with different interpretationsof automobility infrastructure in mobilities studies. The relationship between thesymbolic dimension of the automobility infrastructure and the functional andsensitive dimensions is defined in terms of interdependence. As such, infrastructuredepends for its meaning and value upon the hybrid social system of automobility.The last of these includes a dominant culture that erases the political dimension of

25 In that way, the “fetish” concept refers in broader terms to the power of an object to be a collectivesocial object. Resulting from the affective and aesthetic investments in this object – here the modernroad – as it “naturally” instantiates predominant social values, it is a power to propel specific behav-iours, no necessarily co-related with alienation or oppression processes by elites. See for instance thefetishised pieces of modern art analysed in Deleuze’s essay of aesthetical philosophy, Diff�erence etR�ep�etition (Paris: PUF, 1972).26 The fetisso (pidgin term from the Portuguese feitico) in the late Middle Ages meant the “witchcraft”performed by the ignorant classes. However, unlike Christian ideas about witchcraft, personification ofmaterial objects and fixed belief in an object’s supernatural power were central concepts. The concepthelped Enlightenment intellectuals to build their general theory of primitive religion disseminated in thenineteenth century, before being evoked by theoretical discourses in the twentieth century. WilliamPietz, “The Problem of the Fetish, I”, Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 9 (1985), 5–17; WilliamPietz, “The Problem of the Fetish, II”, Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 13 (1987), 23–45.27 Pietz, “The Problem of the Fetish, II”, 23.

94 The Journal of Transport History 41(1)

automobility, naturalises the infrastructure and assimilates emancipation and indi-

vidual mobility. In turn, the automobility infrastructure consolidates dominant

social groups of the automobility machinic complex. The functional dimension

is reinforced by a snowballing effect, mentioned as the “magic circle” of automo-

bile development (which is also supposed to emancipate society) and the aesthetic

experience of the modern road – mediated through cultural productions such as

film and photo. This experience updates the imaginary and the aesthetic appre-

hension of driving, inducing the overturn of the urban, monumental expressivity in

favour of a kinetic, tangential one. It thus reinforces the symbolic dimension of the

road. The relationships between the functional dimension and the sensitive dimen-

sions of automobility infrastructure are shaped by two logics that are two sides of

the same coin. The assimilation of emancipation and individual mobility is

achieved on a pre-reflexive level through the pleasures of driving: bodily sensations

and feelings of ubiquity and agility in the management of daily rhythms. The

excluding infrastructure is practised as a public space, as the “place of

communion” of a civilised society of drivers experiencing “positive” freedom.

However, it marginalises other mobilities. It also constitutes a network directed

by technocracy and experts, which strongly constrains individuals in their travel,

intercorporeality, identity and lifestyle.

Figure 2. Application of the fetish theory on the three dimensions of automobilityinfrastructure.

Pelgrims 95

In the “The fetishisation of the Brussels roadscape” section, I trace the birthof the Brussels roadscape in the early mass motorisation and “infrastructuring”process period of Belgium. The modernisation of the road deeply transformedthe urban environment between 1949 and 1975. The deliberate policy of urbanrenewal began with the setup of the road modernisation plan, which has pro-pelled the steady construction of urban highways in the capital. It ended withthe adoption by the Brussels Agglomeration of a moratorium on highwayconstruction that initiated a still difficult and slow reconversion towards aless car-dependent city.28 I examine in the Brussels roadscape how the func-tional, sensitive and social dimensions of automobility infrastructure areentangled in a system that corresponds to Pietz’s definition. How it embodiesthe hegemonic fast mobility imaginary that is further stabilised and reinforced.This research is based on (1) discursive archives as technical reports and polit-ical discourses published in the Annales des Travaux Publics and other officialpublications, advertisements and articles in the national press or in popularmagazines such as Routes and Routes et circulation, and (2) a selection ofnon-discursive productions of the second half of the twentieth century suchas movies, TV broadcasts and photographs revealing the infrastructuringprocess.

Theoretical framework

In this section, I adapt Pietz’s four-point definition to the automobility infrastruc-ture in light of mobilities studies to build a new theoretical framework of itsfetishistic dimensions. I address this issue in two main ways.

Entanglements of the symbolic with the functional and sensitive dimensions:The dependence of the automobility infrastructure on a particular order of social

relations and the radical historicity of its origin

The automobility system makes sense out of Pietz’s first proposition that the fetishdepends “for its meaning and value on a particular order of social relations, whichin turn it reinforces”.29 As part of the machinic complex, the automobility infra-structure constitutes a fetish as it takes on its full significance and purpose from thehybrid social system of automobility, which induces distinctive manners of inhab-iting, travelling and socialising, in and through the reshaped time space ofautomobility.30

It is only because we have adapted the world to cars that cars and roads are nowso valuable. By contrast, automobility became almost imperceptible as a social

28 Michel Hubert, “L’Expo 58 et le ‘tout a l’automobile’”, Brussels Studies, 22 (2008).29 Pietz, “The Problem of the Fetish, II”, 23.30 Mimi Sheller and John Urry, “The City and the Car”, International Journal of Urban and RegionalResearch 24:4 (2000), 737–57; see also John Urry, Sociologie des Mobilit�es (Paris: Armand Colin, 2005),69–70.

96 The Journal of Transport History 41(1)

fact; the normality of automobile driving distracted critics from its political dimen-sion to only its economic and cultural effects.31 “Naturalisation”32 is the processthat erases the links between the technological network and the social and envi-ronmental conditions of its production process (inherent work and social powerrelations, transformation of nature through human works). The urban spacebecame part of everyday life, and as such, naturalised, timeless and out ofnature.33 The technological network was afterwards attributed a value, whichhighlights its exceptional character. It became the support, not only of materiality,but also of promises and dream of a better society and a happier life that involvesnew aesthetics. The value of the transported commodity slipped into the infra-structure: car values of freedom and emancipation.34

Every technology and technological network is supported in its development bydifferent discourses that, beyond the advertising discourse, reformulate the imag-inary of the conception stage to conciliate the developers and the users, and thatparticipates in the creation of a new, shared, socio-technical frame that stabilisesthe technology.35 In the case of automobility infrastructure, those legitimatingdiscourses and narratives depend on

• An ordered and rational vision of the modern city, which traffic engineers candescribe as an essentially mathematical issue.36 The technical network producedby science is presumed to have the power to change the world for the better in arational, epistemological context.37

• The assimilation of personal mobility and personal freedom, which spreadsfrom the car to the infrastructure and underlies the Western dominant cultureof automobility.38

However naturalised, timeless and out of nature, automobility infrastructurestrengthens the diverse actors who fully embraced the fetish and helped in“infrastructuring” the city: state administration and politicians, engineers, buildersand oil lobby, drivers, and so on. As Furness puts it, the technological choices anddesires of society – particularly in terms of transport and mobility – are con-strained by strong and specific institutions and companies’ imperatives of

31 Sudhir Chella Rajan, “Automobility and the Liberal Disposition”, in Steffen B€ohm (ed.), AgainstAutomobility (Malden MA: Blackwell, 2006), 113–29, here 117.32 David E. Nye, “Foreword”, in Christof Mauch and Thomas Zeller (eds), The World Beyond theWindshield: Roads and Landscapes in the United States and Europe (Athens OH: Ohio University Press,2008), xi–xiv.33 Kaika and Swyngedouw, “Fetishizing the Modern City”, 122–23.34 Mathieu Flonneau, “Read Tocqueville, or Drive?”, History and Technology 26:4 (2010),379–88, 379.35 Patrice Flichy, “La Place de l’Imaginaire dans l’Action Technique”, R�eseaux, 109:5 (2001), 52–73.36 KeRbłowski and Bassens, “‘All Transport Problems are Essentially Mathematical’”.37 Gilbert Simondon, Du Mode d’Existence des Objets Techniques (Paris: Montaigne, 1969).38 See Bruce Seely, Building the American Highway System (Philadelphia PA: Temple University Press,1987); Cotten Seiler, Republic of Drivers (Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008); Zack Furness,One Less Car (Philadelphia PA: Temple University Press, 2010).

Pelgrims 97

profit.39 The construction of roads indeed empowered professionals who at first

envisage, build, reproduce and legitimate construction in terms of efficiency,

attractiveness and modern progress. It also benefits economic and political elites

by raising their accessibility to international institutions and trade centres and by

supporting the oil, road and car industries.The second dimension of the fetish is the radical historicity of its origin: “arising

in a singular event fixing together otherwise heterogenous elements, the identity

and power of the fetish consist[s] of its enduring capacity to repeat this singular

process of fixation, along with the resultant effect”.40 The arising fetish is an

assemblage of roads, buildings, signs, beliefs, fears and affects, images, values,

autonomous humans and machine practices. In particular, I look here at the assim-

ilation of automobility with personal freedom and social emancipation. How is it

renewed at each driving experience as the modern road network expands and as the

drivers’ community increases?First, American Hommes de la route has noticed, since the 1960s, a very prof-

itable (for oil and road industries) snowball effect in car development. The exten-

sion of the road network encourages motorists to drive more, inducing by a “fleet

effect”: more individuals buy cars, thus increasing automobile traffic and the need

for road network development.41 Insofar as the development of automobility infra-

structure was then perceived as allowing the democratisation of society, this vir-

tuous circle of positive feedback is quickly qualified as “magic”! It fixes by magic a

major problem of society.Second, the symbolic dimension of the modern road is also supported by new

aesthetics in a dual sense: a new way of experiencing the city, and new taste and

sensitivity to beauty. The crisis from which the fetish arises is – as for the modern

art “fetish” – a poetical meeting, a nondescript transaction with the environment,

whose remembrance it deeply affects. The assemblage of buildings, roads and

nature in a roadscape stands as a modernist “aesthetical unit”. It constitutes the

scene of a better society and the decor of a happier life. It relies on aesthetical

logics shared by the different urban actors and linked to the car experience. High-

rise buildings and groups of trees along the road create a new kinetic and tangen-

tial monumentality.42 Automobility bridges, flyovers and other new typologies of

engineered structure were subject to careful design. They became landmarks of

technologically formatted practices and representations of progress defined both

rationally or functionally and aesthetically. As form follows function, the smooth

fluent and elegant shape of the highway ramps, for example, materialised the

39 Furness, One Less Car, 6.40 Pietz, “The Problem of the Fetish, II”, 23.41 Gabriel Dupuy, “From the ‘Magic Circle’ to ‘Automobile Dependence’”, Transport Policy 6:1(1999), 1–17, here 1.42 G�ery Leloutre and Claire Pelgrims, “Le Roadscape Bruxellois. Le Role de la Route Dans laR�enovation Urbaine ou la Coproduction d’une Infrastructure Paysag�ere”, in Tatiana Debroux, Judithle Maire, Yannick Vanhaelen and Claire Pelgrims (eds), L’Entr�ee en Ville. Am�enager, Exp�erimenter,Repr�esenter (Bruxelles: Editions de l’Universit�e, 2017), 43–62.

98 The Journal of Transport History 41(1)

perfect rational curve delivering comfort, vehicle stability and grip despite thevehicle’s tendency to resist turning. Their experience renewed the pleasures ofdriving, and it defined driving as the best way to experience the city. This aesthet-ical crisis is restored and mediated by cultural production via photography andfilms. Those cultural productions have a pedagogical effect on society; they furthertransform how people look at automobility infrastructure. Automobility and auto-mobility infrastructure representations abound in arts and literature, even if theyare rarely analysed. Engineered structures appeared in movies because they arestrongly telegenic with their exceptional dimensions, and they have a great drama-turgic potential.43 More specifically, they are bound up with complex affectiveeconomies. Even humble car parks “vibrate and resonate with a complex arrayof affects and atmospheres – from oppressive, dystopic affects, to nostalgic feelings– and these atmospheres are in turn re-engineered by artists, film-makers andperformance artists”.44

Between the functional and the sensitive: Untranscended materiality of the fetish

and the fetish’s active relation to an individual’s living body

Furthermore, the automobility infrastructure seems to answer promises from con-temporary liberal society in terms of freedom, individualisation and equality at asensitive, pre-reflexive level. Mobility became a metaphor for progress and auto-mobility infrastructure “the locus of religious activity or psychic investment”.45

The political and material construction of roads can indeed enchant, as roadsreinvigorate the promises of speed and connectivity, freedom, integration andprosperity.46

Roads can “enchant” not only as “material instantiations of dominantnarratives”, but also through their experience, material and affective engagementsduring the construction: by the overcoming of material and social resistance to thefuture, of political fragmentation and of economic fragility.47 Infrastructures makethe level of technical progress of society and its democratisation tangible. As such,they are also spaces of statecraft.48

After construction, roads also enable direct liberal experience of freedom: thatof a free person whose actions are his/her own.49 Today, one’s scowl at automo-bility, at best, may be nostalgic but, at that time, cars were experienced in thepresent. The very assimilation of personal mobility and personal freedom men-tioned before arises from the embodied experience and pleasures of the driver tofight against the constraints on free movement.

43 Claude Prelorenzo, “Le Mythe Cin�ematographique des Infrastructures”, in Dominique Rouillard(ed.), Imaginaires d’Infrastructure (Paris: Harmattan, 2009), 15–27.44 Merriman, “Mobility Infrastructures”, 89.45 Pietz, “The Problem of the Fetish, II”, 23.46 Harvey and Knox, “The Enchantments of Infrastructure”.47 Ibid., 524.48 Harvey and Knox, “The Enchantments of Infrastructure”.49 Chella Rajan, “Automobility and the Liberal Disposition”, 113.

Pelgrims 99

Speed performance provides on one hand particularly exciting bodily sensationsin this embodied practice: feeling at one with vehicle and surroundings, feeling andhearing motor vibrations and wind, tasting dust, seeing the landscape differentlythrough the windscreen, sensual car affordances on different infrastructure, and soon. The urban roadscape gives a landscaped apprehension of the urban“flowscapes” or even “taskscapes”: “the ballet of road flows that innerves thecity and seems to make a symphony”.50 It is not the car anymore, but the drivingthat becomes mythical: “le seul champ possible o�u investir des phantasmes de puis-sance et d’invention”.51

On the other hand, the pleasures of driving emerge from feelings of ubiquity andagility in daily rhythm management. Driving raises potential destination horizons.It is the promise of adventures – individualised paths off the rails, driven byautonomous leadership, in a protective shell52 – deeply rooted in the freedom ofmovement at the heart of nature tourism53 and North American automobile imag-inary. Driving also gives better control in the “fight against time” that has char-acterised accelerated modernity. It is an experience of “real, positive, practicalfreedom” already defended in Europe by the Saint-Simonians during the nine-teenth century.54 For them, entry into mobility constitutes the best vector of theinexorable democratisation of occidental society.55 Mobility demonstrates andrealises autonomy, and real mobility can only be enacted if autonomous – other-wise it is a passive displacement.56 Speed obsession, struggle against distances andwidespread circulation are then linked to emancipatory technical progress.57

Through the progress brought in terms of mobility’s technical acceleration,58

democratised automobility provides the means for human emancipation to realiseutopia. The infrastructure therefore fits into the process of civilisation transforma-tion.59 Sudhir Chella Rajan further discusses the evolution inside liberal thoughtfrom a negative freedom (“freedom from”) from the Enlightenment, to a positivefreedom (“freedom to”). Joined values of “autonomy” and “mobility” allow auto-mobility, as practice, to reinforce liberal thought without being theorised by it.60

This autonomy refers to individual autonomy, and that of the object or machine

50 Samuel Bordreuil, “Culture, Attentions Visuelles et Orchestrations des Mobilit�es”, in SylvainAllemand, Francois Ascher and Jacques L�evy (eds), Les Sens du Mouvement (Paris: Belin, 2004),207–15, here 213. Own translation.51 Barthes, “La Voiture”.52 Mike Featherstone, “Automobilities”, Theory, Culture & Society 21:4–5 (2004), 1–24, here 1.53 Alexander Wilson, The Culture of Nature (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1991), 30 quoted by Urry,Sociologie des Mobilit�es, 73.54 Michel Chevalier, “Les Bateaux a Vapeur de l’Ouest”, New Orleans, 8 janvier 1835, Lettres surl’Am�erique du Nord. Cited by Flonneau, “Read Tocqueville, or Drive?”, 382.55 Mathieu Flonneau and Vincent Guigueno, “Lectures Contemporaines de Michel Chevalier”, PourM�emoire 3 (2007), 104–10, here 104.56 Steffen B€ohm et al., “Impossibilities of Automobility”, in Steffen B€ohm et al. (eds.), AgainstAutomobility (Malden MA: Blackwell, 2006), 4.57 Jean Ollivro, L’homme a Toutes Vitesses (Rennes: PUR, 2000), 26.58 Hartmut Rosa, Ali�enation et Acc�el�eration, Thomas Chaumont (tran.) (Paris: D�ecouverte, 2012).59 Flonneau, “Read Tocqueville, or Drive?”, 380.60 Chella Rajan, “Automobility and the Liberal Disposition”, 123.

100 The Journal of Transport History 41(1)

owning movement capacity (automatic, automata, automobile, etc.). This twinresonance suggests the way the hybrid assemblage of the automobile driver wasdescribed by Haraway61 that makes speed performance feel so special.

Pietz has also defined the fetish as “a kind of external controlling organ, direct-ed by powers outside the affected person’s will; the fetish represents a subversion ofthe ideal of the autonomously determined self”. 62 In short, it is somewhat aremote control. Indeed, automobility infrastructure “forces people to juggle tinyfragments of time . . . to deal with the temporal and spatial constraints that it itselfgenerates”.63 If the freedom of the road indeed remains, it also coerces to anintense flexibility. Alienating technical acceleration dilutes time as distance tocover increases, so that automobility stays as the only solution. More specifically,automobility infrastructure is a regulated road network, constraining individualsin their movements and their sensorial intercorporeality.64 Drivers engage in cho-reography orchestrated by technocracy and “experts”, ruled through mode priori-tisation, direction of traffic, traffic light timing, speed limits, stop and rotation, andso on. Automobility in this way produces “modern”, “civilised” individuals.65

Their quality is attested by the successful driving test (which, in many countries,constitutes a ceremonial initiation into adulthood), and by respect for the roadcode as a governmental enforcement device.66

At the same time, “Car travel rudely interrupts the taskscapes of others [. . .],whose daily routines are merely obstacles to the high-speed traffic that cuts mer-cilessly through slower-moving pathways and dwellings”.67 The imperative of driv-ing marginalises pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users outside the public,outside public space more and more transformed into public roads by civil soci-ety68 as the number of drivers increases.69 The definition of the marginalised oth-erness allows the society of drivers to define itself in opposition to it.70 In dominantnarratives, driving is then participating in the social inclusion process71 andexpressing one’s citizenship.72 Hence, infrastructure is also “a place of community,almost a place of communion around founding values”.73

61 Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women (London: Routledge, 1991).62 Pietz, “The Problem of the Fetish, II”, 23.63 Sheller and Urry, “The City and the Car”.64 Urry, Sociologie des Mobilit�es.65 Furness, One Less Car, 6.66 Peter Merriman, “Materiality, Subjectification, and Government”, Environment and Planning D:Society and Space 23:2 (2005), 235–50.67 Sheller and Urry, “The City and the Car”, 745.68 Urry, Sociologie des Mobilit�es, 193.69 See “club effect”, Dupuy, “From the ‘Magic Circle’ to ‘Automobile Dependence’”.70 Furness, One Less Car, 8.71 Flonneau, “Read Tocqueville, or Drive?”, 380; Seiler, Republic of Drivers, 130–35. See also the USexpression “Liberating, individuating, revivifying, equalizing”.72 Furness, One Less Car, 7.73 Marie Bernard, “L’espace Fantasm�e de la Route Am�ericaine”, in Dominique Rouillard (ed.),Imaginaires d’Infrastructure, 39. Own translation.

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Driving has also become a key practice in the constitution at the pre-reflexive

level of an “aesthetic community” in the way Parret has put it:74

The ways of engaging in the community are anything but reflexive, and play in some-

thing as inter-sensitivity, shared eroticisation. [. . .] because the engagement is precisely

aesthetically overloaded, the perceptual investment, sensations, sight, audition . . .

play an essential role [. . .].75

Individuals daily undertook the lonely and collective experience of

immanent, inter-sensitive, quasi-reflexive “pulsing together” (vibrer ensemble).

This pre-reflexive experience is even intensified by immersion in co-presence in

the infrastructure. Moreover, interactions with others and with the environment

awake and enact through emotions internalised, incorporated values.76 This echoes

Anderson’s argument about the American national “imagined community” per-

formed through a daily ritual shared by millions of people – an “extraordinary

mass ceremony”.77 Building on Anderson’s argument, Furness proposed the daily

car commute as a key practice in defining “what it means to do like an

American”.78 The persistent national identity constituents are indeed unreflective

and grounded in quotidian spaces and practices.79 Beyond national identity, the

perception of the cross-border network also gives a sense of belonging to a civilised

human community as already discussed by the Saint-Simonians.

The fetishisation of the Brussels roadscape

I now turn to an illustration of the framework developed in the “Theoretical

framework” section through the case study of the Brussels roadscape.The modern road largely transformed the landscape and the urban environment.

More importantly, its modernisation introduced the firm belief that modern road

was essential to anyone expecting a life in a modern, urban and civilised world. The

modern road was first promoted by engineers and then normalised by society as a

whole, notably by the increasing number of drivers. As highlighted by Peleman in his

analysis of the Belgian Road Federation magazines Routes (1950–52) and Routes

74 Herman Parret, L’Esth�etique de la Communication (Bruxelles: Ousia, 1999) quoted by Jean-LouisGenard, “La Consistance des Etres Collectifs”, SociologieS (2017), § 63. Those aesthetic communitiesdon’t prevent others’ intentional communities as Automobile club to form.75 Genard, “La Consistance des Etres Collectifs”, § 64–66. Own translation.76 Jean-Louis Genard, “Une Sociologie des Emotions ‘Modo Aesthetico’?”, Raisons Pratiques 29(2020), forthcoming.77 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London & New York NY: Verso, 2006 [1983]) quotedby Furness, One Less Car, 7.78 Furness, One Less Car, 7. See also for US and Europe, Peter Merriman and Rhys Jones, “Nations,Materialities and Affects”, Progress in Human Geography 41:5 (2017), 600–17.79 Examining British and Indian car cultures, Edensor, “Automobility and National Identity”.

102 The Journal of Transport History 41(1)

et circulation (1953–62), the normalisation of the modern road has been operated inBelgium by a double narrative that established the infrastructure as a public good.80

The first narrative is that of the modern road as the backbone of a new, modern,ordered and prosperous nation. Developed by the engineers and the RoadAdministration, directed by Henri Hondermarcq, this narrative suggested thatthe scientific approach of the modernisation would guarantee precise and direct– mathematical – effects on quotidian life and on the spatial construction of theentire nation. Avoiding the collapse of the city into a chaotic state, only the inter-vention of engineers on the road could restore a public civil life. Between 1950 and1975, the large transformations of the built environment and skyline of Brusselswere designed to contain urban exodus and to position the city in the internationalcontext as an important third sector centre: the Carrefour de l’Occident.81

The common ambition of urban renovation was to be realised through the leverageeffect of public roads.82 The constitution of a Road Fund in 1955 and the empow-erment of the Road Administration in a dedicated department constitute a pillar ofpublic means for urban renovation. This narrative relies on a specific, modernistcomprehension of circulation and mobility as an indicator of the vitality andhealth of the city – a vision built on the analogy between the urban body andthe living organism.83 Infrastructures are (pseudo-)scientifically dimensioned toensure the continuity of the traffic for envisaged car flows, and the non-interference of flows between different directions and different transportmeans.84 Beyond the different cultural framing of automobilities, there clearlyappears the strong influence of the American example, which had stood asa model of progress for Belgian society in many aspects of daily life.85

Engineers were formed by the new science of traffic developed in the UnitedStates,86 and they based their prescriptions on the objectifying description throughtables, graphs and maps. Outside the traffic engineering point of view centred onorder and rationality, infrastructure does not mean the same or have thesame value.

The second narrative is that of the modern road as necessary for modern life.Through advertising targeting drivers in popular magazines such as Routes andRoutes et circulation, the members of the automobile lobby shared the clear stateproject of road modernisation with a larger audience.87 This group of car

80 David Peleman, “L’enchantement par l’infrastructure”, in Dominique Rouillard (ed.), L’infraville(Paris: Archibooks, 2011), 233–41.81 Minist�ere des Travaux Publics, Bruxelles: Carrefour de l’Occident (Bruxelles: Minist�ere des TravauxPublics, 1956).82 Leloutre and Pelgrims, “Le Roadscape Bruxellois”.83 Richard Sennett, Flesh and Stone (New York NY: Norton, 1994).84 Tellier, “Corps Technique et Techniques du Corps”.85 See the retail model of the shopping centres. Yannick Vanhaelen and Gery Leloutre, “ShoppingCentres as Catalyst for New Multifunctional Urban Centralities”, in Tom Avermaete and JaninaGosseye (eds), Shopping Town Europe, 1945–1975 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017), 51–64.86 Pierre Lannoy, “L’automobile Comme Objet de Recherche, Chicago, 1915–1940”, Revue Francaisede Sociologie 44:3 (2003), 497–529.87 Peleman, “L’enchantement par l’infrastructure”.

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amateurs, enthusiast drivers and members of car, road and oil industries translatedand made the technological benefits of the modern road tangible. The expectedimpacts would have covered not only improvements in energy consumption andcomfort in car travel, but also quotidian life: improved education, information,health and prosperity, happier life, more friends88 (Figure 3). The third figure fromEsso’s advertising series represents an “appropriate” scene of quotidian life, in amodern, civilised and ordered society. It exemplifies the collective vision of thegood life, the normative discourses, images and symbols of the dominant, Western“culture of automobility” that turns utopia into ideology.89 These normative dis-courses rely on the assimilation of individual mobility and personal freedom: “Theroad and the car [. . .] increasingly free men from the slavery of collective transport,offering a chance of escape and giving them back an individual freedom that givethem back their personality”.90 The modern road promises a bright, ethical, car-oriented and modern urban life. This echoes the progressive impetus around thefirst post-war universal exhibition, which took place under the Atomium in 1958.This event drastically accelerated the implementation of the Brussels urban high-way network, which was presented as necessary to welcome the 42 million visitors.

In turn, automobility infrastructure strengthened the actors who promoted itsmodernisation. As we have seen, the social status of the engineers and their impactis improved; the modern road gives better access to political and trade centres(World Trade Centre, European Union, commercial headquarters), which are con-centrated in the city centre; the construction of the road network induces anincrease in traffic, oil consumption and car purchases – strengthening all car-related industries entangled in a more and more international network.91 Thecar manufacturing industry in Belgium, for example, was then mainly an assem-blage base for international – mostly American – companies to supply Europe andto adjust car production.92

This entanglement of all car-related industries around the magic circle of auto-mobile development also answers the second dimension of the fetish: its ability torenew itself. I have not found in the archives any reference as such to the Belgianmagic circle of automobile development. However, the road is described by theengineers as a vector of economic and social evolution for the country as a whole,presupposing a snowball effect of emancipation of society through improvedaccess to modern roads and car purchases. In 1970, Lef�evre ended his report onthe development of the Brussels Road Plan with the advantages of a meshedhighways network (“le filet auquel chacun pourra s’accrocher”) to enhance the

88 Advertising series by Esso entitled “Meilleures routes¼Meilleures vies”, published in Routesbetween 1950 and 1951.89 Flichy, “La Place de l’Imaginaire dans l’Action Technique”.90 Henri Hondermarcq, “Le Role et l’Avenir des Routes Belges”, Bulletin de la Soci�et�e Royale Belgedes Ing�enieurs et des Industriels 1 (1953), 1–27, here 11–12. Own translation.91 See the concept of “global petroleumscape” developed by Carola Hein, “Oil Spaces”, Journal ofUrban History 44:5 (2018), 887–929.92 Henri Houben, “Les Restructurations dans l’Industrie Automobile en Belgique”, CourrierHebdomadaire du CRISP 2295-96 (2016), 5–71.

104 The Journal of Transport History 41(1)

Figure 3. Example from Esso advertising campaign “Better roads¼Better life” in Routes, 1951,no. 7, p. 314. Source: !ExxonMobil.

Pelgrims 105

different regions of the country.93 Hence the connection to the road network

emancipates: having access to urban highways, having highways within the bound-

aries of the municipality, is taking part in the world of progress. Automobilityinfrastructure construction became mandatory for public authorities.

Modern roads have also influenced the aesthetic of the urban renovation.94 The

Brussels roadscape developed at an urban scale what landscaper Ren�e Pech�erecalled a “modern, park-like infrastructural landscape” adjusted to the new ethical

modern society (Figure 1).95 Pech�ere was in charge of the revegetation plan of the

infrastructure: the Green Plan. To articulate infrastructure development and

nature, it recalled the aesthetics of the highways, and it constructed visual andcinematic sequences with modernist aesthetical units made of roads and high-rise

buildings in green open spaces.96 Road administrations and politics wrote precise

reports in the Annales des Travaux Publics on aesthetical and technological

achievements in road conception and realisation.97 Brussels’ roadscape articulates

that way of functionality and modern aestheticism,98 and it reinforces the imagi-

nary of fast mobility through the co-constitution of motion and emotion in the

infrastructure.The new aesthetic also covers renewed experiences of the city. Various cultural

productions, notably television, cinema and photos, manifest the transformation

of how people look at the city from, with and through automobility infrastructure.

The promotion of a new form of monumentality in the Brussels roadscape is

followed by the numerous representations of this cinematic landscape from

inside the car in television broadcasts.99 Furthermore, opening scenes on the road-

scape in Belgian movies have become classic ones. For example, the opening scene

of Chantal Akerman’s Toute une nuit (1982), showing night traffic on Mont des

Arts, Place Royale and on the Koekelberg Flyover in the first 2 min of the film; or

that of Marc Didden’s Brussels by Night (1983) on the boulevard Adolphe Max

and against the Brussels skyline; or again that of Samy Szlingerbaum’s Bruxelles –Transit (1979), where automobile traffic in front of the Midi station answers the

circulation of trains on the platforms. Those opening scenes are ways among

others to set the stage that, however, fits in the broader evolution. In the 1950s,

93 Paul Lef�evre, “Autoroutes 1971 – Bientot un ‘R�eseau’!”, Annales des Travaux Publics de Belgique 2(1970), 129.94 Leloutre and Pelgrims, “Le Roadscape Bruxellois”.95 Koenraad Danneel, Bruno Notteboom and Greet De Block, “The Garden Territory”, in ECLASConference 2017 – Proceedings (London: University of Greenwich, 2017).96 “Le Quartier du XXe si�ecle. De la place Madou a la place Rogier, Zone verte avec des immeubles-tours”, La Lanterne 17 February 1961, 3.97 Paul Lef�evre, “L’Am�enagement Routier de Bruxelles”, Annales des Travaux Publics de Belgique 1(1959), 45–71; See also the representations in Minist�ere des Travaux Publics, Intercommunale Pour lesAutoroutes de la P�eriph�erie de Bruxelles, 15 September 1973, AVB Demey 1028.98 Leloutre and Pelgrims, “Le Roadscape Bruxellois”.99 “La Petite Ceinture de Bruxelles est Ouverte”, Actualit�es Belgavox (Bruxelles, 1957); “Le Tournantde l’Urbanisme Bruxellois”, Antenne Soir (Bruxelles, 1978); Francoise Carton, “Urbanisme aBruxelles”, Antenne Soir (Bruxelles, 1982); “Vivre a Bruxelles”, Bulletin D’information (Bruxelles,1985); “Voir la ville”, TV scolaire (Bruxelles, 1965).

106 The Journal of Transport History 41(1)

the way narrative was “focalised” in movies changed at the international level to

stage the new apprehension of the city allowed by automobility.100 Movies became

the “fetish factories” that entered engineered structures in the mythical dimen-

sion.101 The aesthetic of automobility infrastructure poetically refers in those

three film extracts to that of the night. It recalls Marie Bernard’s description of

the American road, when the landscape disappears at night: “It only subsists and

shows on the road on which the automobile flow comes alive, hoisting infrastruc-

ture to the level of monument”.102 The light shows evoke a space of dreams, of

freedom, “where everything is possible”, which resonates with and reinforces lib-

ertarian imaginary of automobility infrastructure. It is the “medium of represen-

tation of a territory innerved by illusory, dreamed travel but not truly covered”103

(Figure 4). In Cas Oorthuys’s famous photo series of post-war Brussels, the aes-

theticisation of the poetical relation between night and the roadscape also refers to

the urban, festive, animated atmosphere.104

Modernisation is also a theme in the photos Cas Oorthuys took of Brussels in the run-

up to Expo 58, the event that so profoundly transformed the city. The photographer

neither contests nor champions those changes; his photos depict the experiential pos-

sibilities that arise out of the new, meaningful connections.105

Automobility media mythologising has sometimes been ambivalent, even trivial-

ising automobility. But in broader terms, cinematic images are magnifying and

increasing the desire for automobility infrastructure. In a way, then, it repeats the

singular process of fetish production. Cinema mediated even the embodied prac-

tices and sensations of speeding, which reveal, through performative emotions, the

embodied values of individual mobility and personal freedom. In Jerzy

Skolimowski’ Le d�epart (1967), the very excitation of racing is communicated to

the audience in the driving scene on the Brussels roadscape: Meeus Square,

Botanical Garden Boulevard, Soignes forest, and so on. After engineers’ and

industrial actors’ narratives, artists’ creations reinforce and stabilise fast mobility

imaginary. The above-mentioned creations interweave bodily performative emo-

tions, incorporating values of individual mobility and personal freedom, and

sensory-motor processes.The modern road also reinvigorates the promises of connectivity, social eman-

cipation and well-being on a pre-reflexive level. The construction of some engi-

neered structures challenges the Road Administration, engineers and construction

100 Will Straw, “Cinematic Topographies and the 24-hour Cycle”, in Guillaume Drevon et al. (eds.),Chronotopies (Grenoble: Elya, 2017), 32–41.101 Prelorenzo, “Le Mythe Cin�ematographique des Infrastructures”, 15.102 Bernard, “L’espace Fantasm�e de la Route Am�ericaine”, 32. Own translation and highlight.103 Bernard, “L’espace Fantasm�e de la Route Am�ericaine”, 30. Own translation.104 Cas Oorthuys, Bruxelles, 1946–1956 (Bruxelles: Plaizier, 2012).105 Mil De Kooning and Gunther De Wit (eds), 40 Years of Plaizier in 10 Episodes (Brussels: BOZAR,Plaizier, 2017).

Pelgrims 107

firms. The articles on the modernisation of the road network in the Annales des

Travaux Publics mention the difficulties in construction that engineers had to

overcome, while also avoiding interrupting traffic: existing infrastructure and

buildings, soil condition, groundwater table, and so on.106 Once completed,

people perceive this technical infrastructure as a tangible amelioration of their

living standard and human leadership on its own fate. Furthermore, the modern

“American” crossroad (with bypass tunnel) and other breath-taking engineered

Figure 4. Cas Oorthuys, 1949. Source: ! Nederlandse fotomuseum, Rotterdam.

106 Paul Lef�evre, “L’Am�enagement Routier de Bruxelles”.

108 The Journal of Transport History 41(1)

structures (flyovers, bridges and tunnels) fascinated and were religiously hailed asthe manifestation of the Belgians’ technical achievement. The national press widelycovered inaugurations that gathered a large crowd107 (Figure 5). Drivers were

Figure 5. Crowd gathered at the inauguration of the Porte de Namur tunnel. “Sous la Porte deNamur”, Soir 21 April 1967, 1. AVB DD 529.

107“Sous la Porte de Namur”, 21 April 1967, AVB DD. 529; Hugues Vehenne, “L’inauguration de laPetite Ceinture. Six Cents Millions, Seize Mois de Travail. . .”, Le Soir 29 September 1957, 1, 5, AVB

Pelgrims 109

lining up to ride the new road. Infrastructure became, at a national scale and in the

capital, an important vector of attractiveness. As such, the modern road also

became a space of statecraft, symbols of politicians’ contribution to the nation

and key campaign arguments. The attractive positioning of Brussels as the

“Carrefour de l’Occident” through a central position in the European highway

network is presented as a major achievement.The modern road was seen to play a role in the democratisation process. It

enabled the direct liberal experience of freedom. The film Le Depart, mentioned

earlier, exemplifies the pleasures that drivers could experience (speed performance,

bodily sensations) in this brand new “loosened” urban landscape. The road also

raised the capacities of individuals: “the road [is] an extension of each individual

that multiplies possibilities and means of action in all areas without standardising

them”.108 Belgian automobility thus constitutes a major expression of freedom,

which, however, produces and reproduces normalised ethics and behaviours. The

setting of a driving licence also distinguished healthy people from disabled, young

and old people.109 The rapidly increasing motorisation rate110 marginalised pedes-

trians, cyclists and public transport outside the public space. Tramways were put

below ground level to ensure traffic fluidity on the surface; pedestrians saw their

pavements reduced and interrupted while they were expected to wander in specific

commercial and touristic pedestrian areas and galleries; cycle lanes disappeared

with the modernisation of the road. At the pre-reflexive level, practising the auto-

mobility infrastructure gives a sense of belonging to an “aesthetic community” of

modern and civilised drivers. They experience the national specificities of the aes-

thetic and kinaesthetic materialities of the roadscape, and they are nonetheless

connected to the emerging European society through the European highway

network.

Conclusion

To conclude, one encounters epistemological difficulties in considering the inter-

relations of functional, sensitive and social-symbolic dimensions of automobility

infrastructure. Analysing the renewed conception of automobility infrastructure

from the 1950s in relation to the coinciding symbolic investment in cars helps to

improve the understanding of the material infrastructure with affective and aes-

thetic investments into the “modern road”. To address these difficulties, I have

proposed a theoretical framework based on the concept of “fetish”. Defined trans-

versally and transdisciplinary by Pietz, the concept holds heuristic value to

Fauconnier 580; Ph. V., “Dimanche, 16h11, Feu Vert Pour le Tunnel”, La Libre Belgique 1 September1986, AVB Demey 1026.108Hondermarcq, “Le Role et l’Avenir des Routes Belges”, 12.109“Le Permis de Conduire: Les D�emarches”, Les Volants (1966); “Bientot un Permis de Conduire enBelgique”, Bulletin D’information (Belgique, 1962).110The Belgian motorisation grew from 37 cars in 1952 to 213 cars per 1000 inhabitants in 1970.Houben, “Les Restructurations dans l’Industrie Automobile en Belgique”, 11.

110 The Journal of Transport History 41(1)

consider the entanglement between the three dimensions to materialise and stabi-

lise fast mobility imaginary. It challenges and opens new possibilities for interpre-

tations of the mobility infrastructure. Exemplified by the Brussels roadscape, it

explains the dominant and spatial extent of automobility infrastructure, which

deeply affects transition strategies towards sustainable mobility, despite

the long-standing European critics of automobility’s impacts on cities.111

Methodologically, the concept also helps to investigate the representative and

aesthetic dimensions of the modern road through a close attention to film, pho-

tography and pictures.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Jean-Louis Genard, Judith le Maire, G�ery Leloutre and Vincent

Kaufmann for many inspiring comments and conversations around earlier versions of this

paper. I am also grateful to the editor and the two referees for their suggestions.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-

ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, author-

ship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Belgian Fonds

national de la Recherche Scientifique. This article is published with the help of the

Fondation Universitaire de Belgique.

ORCID iD

Claire Pelgrims https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2750-1641

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